


Head Up, Keep Your Love

by twobirdsonesong



Series: For What Binds Us [4]
Category: Glee RPF
Genre: Animals, Awkward Conversations, Established Relationship, Ficlet, For What Binds Us, Future Fic, M/M, Original Character(s), Post Glee, settling down
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-14 05:49:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1255216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twobirdsonesong/pseuds/twobirdsonesong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After moving in and settling down with Darren, Chris finally meets the mysterious Conner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Head Up, Keep Your Love

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: references to past Darren/OMC.
> 
> This is a third one-shot set in the [For What Binds Us](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1011965/chapters/2008891) world.
> 
> Previous Darren/Conner one shots are [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1143407) and [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1182215).
> 
> In this point in the timeline Chris and Darren have reconciled and moved in together.

Chris spends the first couple of weeks after he moves in with Darren hardly leaving the house.  He’s been without Darren for so long, and their lives have been so utterly separate for so many years, that Chris soaks up every fresh moment like a drought-starved man gasping for every last drop of water. Darren certainly doesn’t seem to mind.

 

They sleep in, waking tangled up together and falling back asleep slowly when they remember that the other is still there. And isn’t going anywhere. There’s relief there, but steady surety tempers is.  Sometimes Chris joins Darren in the shower when they finally pull themselves out of bed, and sometimes he just lingers in the body-warm sheets listening to the sound of water against the tiles and Darren singing to himself and trying to process how he can feel this happy, this centered after so many years of floundering and grasping for nothing.  When Darren comes out of the bathroom he shakes his wet head and sends water flying all over Chris and Chris just reaches out to smack the meat of his thigh. Things are good; how they should have always been.

 

Chris learns how to cook a little breakfast, though he prefers sitting at the kitchen counter while Darren scrambles eggs or flips pancakes.  They hand wash the dishes even though Darren has a washer so they can stand shoulder to shoulder and trade kisses for plates.  Chris doesn’t get a little choked up at all when Darren leans his head on his shoulder and lets out a soft, happy sigh.  Sometimes they retreat to the living room to read or talk or watch movies.  Juniper and Brian claim their respective spots and Briggs comes along to take up the last remaining space on the couch.  There isn’t a ban on “working” in the living room, but Chris finds he doesn’t want to. Darren has his production space in the attic and Chris has his office upstairs.  That’s more than enough.  He doesn’t need to bring that part of him to the safety of the couch and the bookshelves and Darren’s chair.  Work has been a source of so many of their problems in the past; he’s not going to let it bring them down again.  There are more important things than chapters of a book.

 

When they eventually have to venture outside for groceries, Chris tugs on one of Darren’s old hoodies and doesn’t miss the deep warmth in Darren’s eyes when he sees what Chris is wearing.

 

“Yeah?”  Darren asks, reaching out to touch the sleeve, and Chris just resolutely zips the jacket up.

 

Sometimes Chris thinks about making some sort of statement, some sort of gesture on social media about this – about him and Darren, about moving in together, about the completed circle of their lives. But his history with the balance of private and public space is tenuous at best and he thinks maybe the best way to go about this is to just let it happen.

 

And Chris would be a liar if he said he didn’t look forward to their nights.  That’s not to say that their sex is regulated to just the night hours.  It’s not at all.  But there’s something about turning the lights off and shutting the house down, about following Darren into his bedroom and closing the door, about peeling his clothes off and the sound of the fabric hitting the floor. Darren’s sheets are soft and the pillows firm and Chris reveals in the sharing of long-missed warmth and the rasp of skin on skin.  He knows there’s no clock ticking on this, that there’s no limited supply of Darren’s hands and mouth and the weight of his body.  But Chris doesn’t care.  He gluts himself on Darren, takes for himself as much as he can to fill the years he went without.  It leaves him wrung out and more alive than ever before.

 

But after those long, lazy, perfect weeks they begin the settle into the gentle rhythm of their lives.  Chris has the new book to write and the words are once again coming fast and easy to his fingertips.  He delights in the growing document and doesn’t mind at all when Darren reads a few pages over his shoulder.  The press of lips to the back of his head and the hand smoothing down his arm is critique enough.

 

Darren shows him around San Francisco, points out his favorite bars and restaurants, the places he hangs out and rattles off a few people he wants Chris to meet.  He teaches Chris how to feed the chickens and where the different vegetables are planted in the garden.  Chris remembers about the mulch and it makes Darren laugh and kiss him soundly in the middle of a Home Depot.  There’s talk of visiting Darren’s parents, but Chris isn’t quite ready for that. He disappointed them once; he’s not going to do it again.  It’s too important and the weight of the ring on Darren’s finger reminds him of that.

 

The hands on the clock move and Chris is figuring out the cogs of Darren’s life and how he fits into it.  They have separate careers, now, but their lives are intertwined in a way they never were before.  Five years ago, Chris would have chaffed at the thought, now he celebrates it.  Clothes in drawers and shared mugs and one tube of toothpaste on the bathroom counter. It’s everything he told himself he would never be allowed to have and more.

 

And Chris doesn’t miss LA at all.

 

***

 

It’s a lazy Sunday and Chris looks up when Darren suddenly clambers out of his chair.  Briggs perks up from where he’d been sleeping on the floor to watch him too.

 

“I’m gonna…” Darren gestures vaguely at the ceiling and Chris has learned that it means he’s indicating his attic studio. “Thought bubble, you know?”

 

Chris grins.  “Go.”  He loves how the music is pouring from Darren the way the words are coming from him.

 

“You sure?”  Darren wrinkles his nose.

 

“ _Go_.”

 

Darren crosses over to the couch where Chris is curled up, brushes his thumb across Chris’ cheek and ducks down for a kiss. Chris doesn’t stop smiling until Darren’s footsteps disappear all the way up to the attic.

 

Suddenly Briggs gets up from his spot next to the couch and Chris watches as he pads through the living room and into the kitchen.

 

“Where are you going?”  Chris calls out after him.  Briggs moves as though he’s got a clear destination in mind and Chris is suddenly, irrevocably curious.  The dog is weird enough all ready, what with the whole thing about him belonging to Darren’s neighbor and not Darren himself and the way he just sort of comes and goes and everyone is completely cool with it.  It’s not normal, but so little about Chris’ life has been in years.

 

Chris gets up and follows the dog.  Briggs is waiting at the back door and those big brown eyes stare up at Chris imploringly.

 

“You need to go out?”

 

Briggs bumps the doorknob with his nose and Chris smiles.

 

“I’m going to trust that if I open this door you’re not going to, like, run out into the street and get hit by a car or something. Darren loves you a lot and I would miss you too.”

 

The dog doesn’t say anything, but his eyes tell Chris that he thinks his human’s human is an idiot.

 

“Fine.”  Chris opens the door and Briggs walks out and down the stairs. Chris watches the dog wind through the little mini farm that is Darren’s backyard.  The curiosity about Briggs that Chris felt before hits him even harder and before he knows it he’s outside and following Briggs across the yard.

 

“Where do you live, huh?” Chris asks. He’s well familiar with the one-sided conversations that come with owning a pet.  “Who lets you stay out like this?”

 

Briggs seems to understand that Chris is going to follow him because he sticks close to Chris’ legs, just a step ahead of him, leading him across the grounds and finally to a fence.  It’s not really much a fence – clearly meant as a property maker more than a barrier.  Briggs slips under and Chris finds a gate he can pass through.

 

They end up on a little back road that’s more than an alley and less than a street.  Chris follows as Briggs trots along with confidence, clearly knowing where he’s going, and Chris takes the time to look around at the other houses and yards of Darren’s neighborhood.  It’s a charming place – green and fresh and alive, and the air smells of salt and dirt.

  
Chris takes a deep breath and really doesn’t miss LA in the slightest.

 

Briggs suddenly turns into a yard that’s rather a lot like Darren’s and Chris stops before he crosses into some stranger’s property. He sees similar vegetable patches to Darren’s, though there are no chicken coops.  The house beyond the yard is smaller than Darren’s, but it’s cute and well maintained.  The shutters are green and there are flowers in the windows here too.

 

“Is this where you live?” Chris asks. Briggs is halfway through the yard when he stops and turns, as though he just realized Chris wasn’t following him anymore.  He barks.

 

“This is your house, buddy.  Not mine.  You go on.”  Chris is more than okay with turning around and going home before the owner shows up.

 

But the dog just barks again and looks at him expectantly.

 

“Briggs!” A man’s voice calls out and Chris jumps. “Knock it off!”

 

Briggs barks a third time.

  
“Dude, what’s your problem?”

 

Chris goes still when a man appears from around the side of the house.  He’s tall, maybe taller than Chris, with broad shoulders and strong arms and he walks with an easy swagger.  His nose his straight, his eyebrows thick, and his jaw is dark with a beard.  Even from a distance Chris knows he’s gorgeous. He’s wearing snug, dirt-stained jeans and a black Henley with the buttons undone and Chris tears his eyes away from the solid lines of his collarbones.  So this is Briggs’ owner.

 

“Hi there,” the man calls out.  Briggs pads up to him and circles around his legs. The man reaches down to scratch at the dog’s ears.

 

“Hi,” Chris licks his lips, acutely embarrassed at getting caught loitering.  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to trespass or anything, but your dog, he-”

 

“You’re Chris, aren’t you?” The man interrupts. He wipes the dirt from his big hands.

 

Chris is startled, but he tries to hide it. He’s used to people recognizing him, but not like this.  This is something else.

 

“Uhm, yeah.  How did you…?”  He trails off.

 

The man has come closer and Chris can see that his eyes are a pale shade of green, ringed with a deeper hue.  “I’m Conner.  Conner Wexler.”  He smiles and his teeth are very white.

 

 

Chris swallows hard.  Darren has talked about a Conner.  _They_ have talked about a Conner.  The neighbor Darren goes to the Saturday market with to sells chicken eggs and fresh vegetables. The man Darren was with when he wasn’t with Chris.  The man who apparently owns the dog that still sometimes sleeps over at Darren’s house. Somehow he’s not surprised they’re one in the same.

 

“Oh,” Chris says, stupidly.  “Yeah, hi.  Chris Colfer.”  Chris reaches out to shake Conner’s hand and feels a fool for it. His cheeks are bright red and his heart is pounding in his throat, but Conner’s grip is firm.

 

“Do you want to come inside?”  Conner asks, tipping his head, and Chris sort of hates how attractive he is.  He can’t blame Darren at all.

 

“I shouldn’t bother you…” Chris protests. He never should have followed that damn dog.

 

“You already came over here.  We’re already talking.  And besides, we’re neighbors now, aren’t we?” Conner’s voice winks even if his eyes don’t.

 

“Yeah, uhm, okay.” Chris can’t see how he could refuse anyway.

 

Conner grins brightly and Chris is pretty sure he even has dimples.  “Come on.”

  
Chris straightens his shoulders and follows Conner and Briggs into the adorable house.  The backdoor opens into a mudroom and Chris watches as Conner toes off his dirty boots and leaves them on a mat.

 

“Do you want me to…?” Chris gestures to his own sneakers, but Conner just shakes his head.

 

“Not unless you’ve been tromping through chicken shit. Have you?”

 

Chris glances down.  “Uhm, nope.”

  
“Then we’re good.” Conner leads Chris through the mudroom and into a kitchen.  It’s warm inside and smells of cinnamon and wood.  Briggs trots over to the corner where bowls of food and water wait for him.

 

“Can I get you something to drink?” Conner asks. “Coffee?  Tea?  Two fingers of Scotch to make it through this?”

 

Chris huffs a laugh.  He can’t help it.  “Tea would actually be great.”

 

He takes a look around as Conner gets water boiling and mugs down from the cabinets, trying not to snoop too obviously. Conner’s kitchen is cream and brown with accents of green and Chris likes it immediately.  It’s different than Darren’s, but just as nice. There are bills on the counter and peculiar magnets on the fridge.  A dining table is covered in stacks of papers and books and a laptop. A worn leash hangs by the door, which strikes Chris as the oddest thing of all because he’s never once seen Briggs on a leash.  Across the way the kitchen leads out into what looks like a living room, but Chris can’t see much more.

 

“So ask me the thing you want to ask me,” Conner says suddenly, breaking Chris out of his examination of the kitchen.

 

Chris turns to find Conner holding two steaming mugs of tea.  “Uhm,”

  
Conner rolls his eyes and walks to the kitchen table, setting the mugs down and pushing one towards Chris.  “Come on, sit down.”

 

Chris does.

 

“So ask me,” Conner prompts again.  His eyes are calm and Chris might have thought that he was amused if it weren’t for the firm set of his strong jaw.

  
There are a thousand and six things Chris wants to ask, most of which he never will.  There are some things that can remain unknown without trouble.  But he knows enough from his long, much-needed talks with Darren to be curious about the man Darren spent more than a year in love with. He’s grown enough to admit to himself that he’s been wondering what the man was like in the flesh. And how he rated against him.

 

Chris takes a sip of the tea to give himself a few extra moments. Conner is staring at him from across the table with those pale green eyes.  He might as well ask.  “I guess – why did you two…you know?”

 

Conner’s eyebrows twitch.  “Why did we break up?”

 

“Yeah.”  It’s something Chris has thought about ever since he found out that Darren had been in a serious relationship (never mind the less than serious ones).

 

“I got an offer I couldn’t turn down. And didn’t want to.”

 

“What was the offer?”

 

“I’m a professor.”  Conner waves a hand towards the stacks of papers Chris assumes are student tests or essays.  “I was granted a yearlong sabbatical in Germany.  It’s something I’d been working hard towards.”

 

“So you just…left?”  Chris tries to imagine a scenario where he would have just up and left someone he was in love with and then he flushes in shame. He supposes he really has no right to judge anyone on that.

 

“It wasn’t like that,” Conner counters. One of his big hands rests flat on the table.  “It wasn’t just up and leaving. It was a key opportunity to advance my career.  My future. There are some things you can’t let pass you by.”

 

Chris thinks abut how far away Germany is, and how quickly Darren left Los Angeles when he had the chance.  “But you and Darren…”

 

“Were together.  And then we weren’t.”  He says it so matter-of-factly that Chris’ stomach twists. “He wasn’t going to come to Germany and I wasn’t going to ask him to.  What happened was inevitable.”

 

“And he was just okay with that?  With you leaving?  For so long?  Didn’t you discuss it?  Did you try and work it out?” Chris can hear the tension in his voice rising and he hates it. It hits too close to the things he’s still trying to forgive about himself.

 

“Of course we discussed it.”  Conner’s left eyebrow tells Chris all he needs to know about what Conner thinks of him in that moment.  “And why shouldn’t he have been okay with it? I wasn’t in control of his life and he wasn’t in control of mine.  It wasn’t like that.”  


“But…”

 

“Chris,” Conner’s voice is firm and Chris wonders if Conner hates him, just a little.  “It wasn’t a choice between him and something else.”

  
And Chris swallows hard.  Because it _was_ for him. It had been, or at least it had become one.  He’d turned an already confusing, tenuous situation into that disastrous choice when maybe it hadn’t needed to be.  He knows he could have – should have – done so much better by Darren and himself. If only he’d had the resources and the resolution.

 

“We make decisions based on what we think we know,” Conner says.  “About ourselves. About each other. But I knew the decision to go to Germany was the only one for me.  And Darren knew it too.  And I knew that Darren understood.  It wasn’t like I was leaving him behind.  He didn’t feel that way.  There wasn’t a choice because there was only one option. But it wasn’t the same for you, was it?”

 

Chris doesn’t even bother trying to deny it. He’s already spent so much time thinking about how things might have ended up if they’d gone a little differently.  If he’d been a different person at the time, if he’d let Darren be the person he was meant to be.  If Darren hadn’t been bound up in things that neither of them had any say or control over. He’d been so young and he hadn’t really understood anything at all. But he does now.

 

“And to answer the question you don’t have to ask, yeah, I loved him.”

 

Chris’ hands squeeze reflexively around the mug and he laughs without mirth.  “How could you not?”  Darren is nothing if not immensely, destructively loveable.

 

“He had a lot to work through when we met.” Conner’s eyes are sharp and serious and Chris knows just how much he still cares for Darren, and probably always will.  He finds it doesn’t bother him the way he thought it might.

 

“I know,” Chris agrees.

  
What he doesn’t know is what exactly Darren was like when he left LA and moved back to San Francisco, how bad it was.  He knows about the drunken fall Darren took and the scar it left on his chin.  He knows Darren was a mess, but it’s still only bits and pieces.  Conner knows the rest.  Conner was the one Darren met when he struggling to put himself back together of the shards Chris had helped break him into. Chris has to be grateful for that. He doesn’t want to know what might have been had Darren not met someone like Conner, how long it would have taken him to heal otherwise.  He has no grudge to hold.

 

“But you don’t have anything to worry about, from me,” Conner continues.  “Or him.”

 

Chris looks up at that.  “I didn’t…” He tries to protest, but stops. It’s not that he was ever _worried_ about this mysterious Conner, about the man Darren spoke so passionately about.  But he’d be a liar to say that he hadn’t thought it, hadn’t wondered about Conner’s lingering place in Darren’s life.

 

“Look, Chris.  That kid’s been in love with you since he met you.” Chris blushes. “Our relationship was wonderful. Really.  It was.  Wouldn’t have traded a moment of it for anything.  He’s a special kind of a guy.  But it was always going to be _you_.”

 

Chris drops his eyes back to the table. He was such an idiot. They both were. But they’ve figured it out. Chris thinks about the ring that’s back on Darren’s finger and almost smiles.

 

“Thank you,” Chris says softly, because what else is there to say?

 

Conner tips his head.  “For what?”

  
“Taking care of him, when I couldn’t.  Or wouldn’t.”  Chris takes a drink of the cooling tea and almost wishes he’d gone for the offered Scotch.

 

“He’s an adult.”

 

“I know.  But that doesn’t mean we don’t sometimes need a second pair of hands to help us along.” He wishes he’d been able to be those hands, but he knows he wasn’t ready then.  He is now.

 

Conner’s expression finally softens. “Indeed we do.”

 

They probably have more to say to each other, but Chris isn’t sure he has much left in him for more.  Not just then.  But he knows it’s not the last time he’ll speak with Conner, not by a long shot.

 

“I should get back,” he says, because it’s just about the most trite thing he can say, but he knows Conner will understand the meaning underneath it.

 

“I’m glad you stopped by,” Conner says as they stand from the table.  “I’ve been wanting to meet you for a while now.”

 

“Well, your dog sort of had a hand in that. A paw, rather.” Chris glances down at Briggs, who’s sprawled in a comfortable pile of limbs on the kitchen floor.

 

Conner grins fondly.  “Yeah, he has a way of doing that.”  Conner takes their half-empty mugs and put them in the sink before leading Chris back to the door.

 

“I’m always here, you know,” Conner says, as Chris descends the stairs.  “If you need to talk.  About anything. I’m here.  I’m not trying to say, ‘hey we should be friends’ but-”

 

“We should be friends,” Chris agrees, and he means it. Conner nods and lifts his hand in farewell.

 

“See you around, Chris.”

 

Chris retraces his steps back to Darren’s house, back home. He takes his time, walking slowly, and replaying his conversation with Conner in his head.  He supposes it’s nothing he hadn’t already known, somewhere inside himself.  But it’s still good to hear said aloud.  From someone else, someone else who understands.

 

Darren is in the kitchen when Chris comes inside, hmming to himself and setting things out on the counter.

 

“Hey!” He calls out, smiling happily at Chris. “Was making a sandwich, you want?”

 

“Sure.”

  
Darren tips his head and his eyes turn questioning.  “Everything okay?  You look…” Darren trails off.

 

Chris leans against the counter, close to Darren. “I sort of accidentally just met Conner,” he says.

 

Darren folds his arms across his chest. “Oh really.”

 

“Yeah.  I sort of followed Briggs.”

 

Darren’s mouth twitches.  “Sort of.”

 

Chris blushes.  “He’s a weird dog and I guess I…wanted to know.”

 

“Well…” Darren’s eyebrow twitches and Chris knows then it’s something he picked up from Conner.  “How was it?”

 

Instead of answering, Chris turns into Darren, clasps his face in his hands, and draws his mouth up for a kiss.  Darren arms unfold from his chest, his body automatically surging up to meet him, and Chris can taste him smiling.

 

“That good, huh?” Darren asks, breathlessly, when Chris pulls away.

 

“He’s a good man,” Chris says by way of answer, brushing his thumb across Darren’s scruffy jaw.

 

Darren takes Chris’ hand and presses it to his chest. “So are you.”

 

“I guess you’re all right, too.”

 

“Does this mean we don’t have to move? And that maybe he can come over for dinner?  Once in a while?” Darren blinks up at him with those stupidly bright eyes of his and Chris just smiles and feels the beating of Darren’s heart under his palm.

 

“As long as I’ve got you the rest is just details.” He ducks in and kisses Darren’s waiting mouth again, because he wants to, because he can.

 

“Oh, good,” Darren whispers and his arms loop around Chris’ shoulders.

 

“Now about that sandwich…”


End file.
